The Five Dates Rule
by Benjamin Franklin Gates
Summary: Barney soon realizes that for his Bro-Code there is a corresponding Gal-Code. While at the same time Ted realizes that being like Barney might actually help him meet his future wife. Sorry that the first chapter only features Barney and Ted, but I didn't really see any reason to include Lily, Marshall or Robin into that small story line, don't worry though, they'll show up soon.
1. Chapter 1

How I Met your Mother

_Th_e _Five Dates Rule_

'**So, kids, today I'm going to tell you about the time your Uncle Barney found out that there was a "Gal-Code". Of course, you know that Barney was always rambling on and on about the illustrious Bro-Code, but until this defining week in his life, he never truly understood that there was a parallel code just for women, and rule number one is "The Five Dates Rule".'**

"All right, all right!" Barney rambled off, he was staring off at the bar, as usual. "10 o'clock?"

"No." I said.

'**I'd really gotten surprisingly good at being your uncle Barney's wingman, I had already scouted the 'talent' up at the bar before even coming to sit down, and I'd been periodically glancing at the girls' reflections in the juke box, I knew what every girl looked like that was sitting at that bar... **

'**Now, kids, I'm not proud of that.'**

"Ted, you didn't even look at the girl, you couldn't possibly-"

"Her left breast is easily one cup size larger than her right breast." I told him.

"No way!" Barney protested.

"Tilt your head" I said.

'**When he tilted his head as I had commanded he got an awful look on his face.'**

"How did you? How did you know that?" He asked.

"Easy, Barney, when I walked in the front door and saw that you were the only person in the booth, I knew I was going to be your wingman, so I scouted the talent. I noticed that that particular girl looked a little odd, and at first I couldn't quite tell what was wrong, but that's when it occurred to me, that both of her breasts looked the same size, but she was leaning into the bar on her right side, her right breast should have looked much larger."

"Wow, Ted, you should be proud of yourself, that was Legen… wait for it…"

'**Just then Carl walked up to the booth holding two glasses of milk.'**

"Dairy, anyone?"

"Thank you, Carl!" Barney shouted, he took the milk from Carl and shooed him away. "You have such talent, you must be so proud!"

'**I wasn't!'**

"Well, I just figured that if I'm not going to find my future wife right now, I might as well have fun, and you are the most reckless person I know when it comes to having fun with members of the opposite sex."

"Ted," Barney started to tear up, "you have no idea how proud that makes me feel!"

"Alright, what do you think my chances are with 10:30?"

"You don't have a snowball's chance in hell!"

"Why not? She's not even that great looking, she's probably a 6, Robin's an 8 and I nailed that."

"No, Ted, you don't realize that you don't have a shot, because I'm going to buy her a round of shots."

"Don't you have a 10 sitting outside of your apartment waiting for you?"

"For the love of God, Ted, why do I have to keep explaining this to you? NEW IS ALWAYS BETTER! Sure I have a 10 sitting outside of my apartment… but I've already seen them, snuggled with them, and motor-boated them, but I've never seen this 6's tatas, and that makes her 10 times hotter than the 10 I have at home… do you know what that makes her, Ted? That makes that 6 at the bar a 100… she's a one hundred… that is one with two zeros after it." Barney said, he patted me on the shoulder and continued up to the bar.

'**I sat in the booth, lonely, I knew just a few of the sick and degrading things that your uncle Barney was going to do to that girl, and even that made me pass on the hot wings that were sitting on the table in front of me.**

'**So I decided to try my luck up at the bar. I walked up behind the prettiest girl I saw and just leaned on the bar in front of her.'**

"Do you like scotch?" I asked.

"I love a nice scotch." She said, she gave me a small smile, mixed with a slight tilt in the head.

"Carl, can I have a bottle of your most expensive scotch?"

"That'd be 1700 dollars."

"How about your most expensive bottle of scotch that is priced under 150 dollars?"

"Coming right up." Carl disappeared into the stock room.

"Are you this charming all the time?"

"Only when I'm not busy being super attractive." I laughed.

"My name's Abby."

"Ted Mosby"

"You know what I like to wear when I'm drinking scotch?"

"What would that be?"

"Nothing"

'**Kid's, I'm not going to lie, I was rather attracted to this woman, and in that moment when all of the blood rushed from my head to… well, my head, I added 150 dollars to my tab, and never got to enjoy that bottle of scotch.**

'**At this point in the story, Abby and I were getting rather hot and heavy in the backseat of the cab, normally I would have been embarrassed, but Ranjhit was our driver, and he was pretty cool about it. Everything was going amazing, until my phone rang.'**

'_Ted_,' Barney said over the phone, '_What the hell is the five dates rule?_' Barney asked me.

"I don't know… I guess you have to wait five dates for, well, I'm assuming from it being you that it's sex."

'_You mean I will never have sex with this girl?_'

"No, I mean you have to go on five dates with her."

'_So you're saying I will never have sex with this girl?_'

"I'm going" I hung up the phone, turned it off, and put it in my pocket. "So, where were we?"

'**I really don't think you guys need to hear this part of the story, but now is a good time to stop for lunch, I'm starved, it seems like I've been talking to you guys for 7 years.'**


	2. Chapter 2

'**As you kids probably remember, your Uncle Barney was embarking on something he hadn't done before… waiting 5 days to sleep with a girl; and it was showing.'**

"Marshall, I need you to make me a promise!" Barney said with a bit of a twitch in his voice. He was sitting on the couch in my apartment next to Marshall. "If I die before I sleep with her, you sleep with her for me!"

"Dude, you're being crazy… It's 5 days; you waited like what 18 years before you had sex for the first time?" Marshall asked.

"Yes, but it's like alcohol… or-"

'**Sandwiches, kids, it was like sandwiches!'**

"You were 15 before you ate your first sandwich, but now we can't go a month without hitting a sandwich once or twice." Barney said.

"Barney, you're really not looking so good, you're sopping wet." I said, I walked up to your Uncle Barney and gave him a beer. "Why don't you take off the suit?"

"Why don't you go to HELL?" Barney asked.

'**That's when I knew this had gone too far, I took your Uncle Marshall into the kitchen and we made a plan.'**

"Marhsall, he's acting crazy!"

"I don't know, Ted, he's making a lot of sense to me…" Marshall said, "Do you think we have a problem, with sandwiches, I mean Barney really got me thinking about it, we need to stop eating sandwiches! We're not college kids anymore!"

"What the hell? No that's not what I'm talking about… we need to get Barney laid."

'**Your uncle Marshall proceeded to laugh for about 3 minutes straight, if I hadn't been so pissed I probably would have been happy for him, he'd broken his own 2003 record of 2 minutes 23 seconds.'**

"You do realize that sad bastard has wasted the last 10 years of his life trying to get you laid, right?"

"Yeah, and normally I would bask about him going through sexual withdrawals, but I have a date tonight, and if I bring her back here, he better be gone."

"Don't worry, Ted, I'll get him back on the saddle." Marshall said, he began to turn around and return to the living room when turned back to me. "You don't have a saddle do you? It'd be a hell of an ice breaker."

**Now I wasn't there, but from stories I'd gathered from everyone that was at MacLaren's with your uncle Barney this is what I gather happened.**

"Alright, Barney, the first thing you need to understand is that this is completely disgusting, and I'm only helping you because that bitch you met at the bar last night screwed me over." Lily said.

"What the hell did Amber… err, Jessi—no… umm?" Barney was at a loss for the girl's name.

"Mandy"

"Yup!" Barney said snapping his fingers. "Mandy, what the hell did she do to you?"

"Well, this all happened back in 2000, I'd just graduated and I was spending my first week here in the city, there was a fundraiser at the humane society… it was a silent auction, and that little bitch followed me around and outbid me on everything… the only thing she let me have was the comforter Marshall and I have on our bed."

"Wait!" Marshall shouted, "You said that was a family heirloom!"

'**In the minutes that preceded your aunt Lily and uncle Marshal had quite the fight, but that's not really important to this story. Your uncle Barney wandered away from the booth and up to the bar.**

'**I can't really prove anything that happened up at the bar, but Carl swears it happened.'**

"Carl, I've got a round for everyone." Barney said. Everyone in the bar applauded, I mean, who doesn't like free drinks. Barney looked across the bar and found an incredibly attractive girl sitting across from him. "Carl, Carl!"

"What do you want?"

"Give everyone some ginger ale in wine glasses, except her." He motioned over toward the girl across the bar.

"Give her whatever the hell you think will knock her off her ass!"

Barney straightened up his tie and walked over to the girl.

"Excuse me, I seem to have lost something, and I didn't know if you could help me find it."

"Of course" she answered.

"It's your number."

She laughed a little; she then gave Barney the 'nod'.

'**Now, I'm not a hundred percent sure what the nod is, but I've heard that when you see it, you know it.'**

"Have you ever seen the inside of the men's bathroom?" Barney asked.

'**Exactly 1 minute and 21 seconds later Barney reemerged from the restroom back to his normal self. Now I wish I could tell you that this somehow changed Barney, that waiting five dates made everything click in his life… but he was still the same old Barney, but after the fifth date, your uncle Barney did have an amazing discovery.'**


	3. Chapter 3

'**Well, I know you kids are enjoying the story about Uncle Barney, but for you to understand the rest of his story, I've got to break off to my night with Abby.'**

'**So I had taken her to MacLaren's and we were in the middle of what I have to saw was a really good date,'**

"So, Ted, you said that you're an architect?" Abby asked.

"Yeah, I actually designed the new GNB Tower."

'**I feel a little embarrassed now for bragging on the GNB Tower so much, but it got results… usually.'**

"You designed the GNB Tower…" Abby sat there silently for a moment, and that was when I really knew something was wrong. "And you said your name was 'Ted Mosby'?"

"Umm… yeah." I said.

"Are you friends with Barney Stinson?"

"Oh, my God… did he give you a free Breast Exam?"

"No."

"Okay, we could play this game where I ask you about something awful he's done, and you say 'no', pretty much all night, or you could just tell me what he did to you."

"My great grandfather owned the Arcadian, and he slept with me to get his hands on the deed."

"And now we're building the new GNB Tower over the ashes of the Arcadian."

"Yes"

'**I said "usually".**

'**Well, to make a long story short, Abby got really pissed, and the date ended… that was the last night I told girls about the Tower.**

'**When I went back to the apartment, I found your Uncle Barney, and his date. I walked in on Barney getting ready to take this girl to MY bedroom.'**

"Barney!" Barney yelled at me. "What the hell are you doing in my apartment?"

"Umm, I live here, and my name's not Barney."

"Oh, my God, the amnesia came back!" Barney shouted, he jumped up off the couch and ran over to me. "I will give you 500 dollars to say you're Barney, and go back to my place and wait on me."

"Are you going to have sex with her in my bed?"

"That's the plan."

"Then, no."

"1,000 dollars."

"No"

"100,000 dollars."

"Okay, give me 100,000 dollars, Barney."

"Okay, you got me, I was bluffing… I will give you…" Barney pulled out his wallet and counted all the money, "332 dollars and," he then pulled out all the change in his pocket, "27 cents."

I grabbed the money out of your Uncle Barney's hands and proceeded to say, "And you buy me a complete new bed set."

"We may have had sex on the couch already"

"And a new couch."

"Deal!" Barney said, he reached out and shook my hand, "NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE YOU FILTHY BASTARD!" Barney shouted.

"Okay, Ted." I said.

"Who is Ted?" Barney's girl asked.

"Yeah, I might have told her that my name is Marshall." Barney said with a smile. "What can I say, she likes Brett Favre."

"Barney, you are a sick son of a bitch." I rolled my eyes, "This'll cost you another 20 bucks!"

"Okay."

"Good night, Marshall" I shouted.

'**Now even though I wasn't there I can assure you that this actually happened, mainly because your Uncle Barney filmed this date, and made me watch the video over several times.'**

"So, where were we, Jodi?" Your Uncle Barney asked.

"Mandy"

"Oh, right."

"C'mon, Marshall, something doesn't seem quite right with you tonight."

"Gee, I'm sorry, but I was a virgin before, and this date is going well and I know what's going to happen tonight, it kind of freaks me out."

"Come over here and I'll set your mind at ease… again."

'**Then your Uncle Barney got a weird smile on his face, I'd only ever seen this smile once before, and only one time since. It was a look that meant, I'm doing this, but I really want to be somewhere else.**

'**For you guys to really understand this, you need to understand something I didn't know until just recently… but at this very moment, your Uncle Barney was fantasizing about your Aunt Robin. For the first time in his life he was in love with a woman and every time he slept with a stranger it kind of dulled the pain he felt, but Mandy forcing him to get to know her, that killed Barney inside.'**

"Would it be okay if you let me see your boobies again?" Barney asked. That weird look on his face suddenly went away.

'**Just then, almost by fate, Mandy's phone rang.'**

"Damnit!" Barney shouted.

"What? Ted Mosby… and you think his name should go with Barney Stinson?" Mandy closed her phone and put it back in her purse.

"What was that?" Barney asked.

"Oh I have to add some names to my book."

"What book?"

"The 'Gal Code'." She answered, "you see, it's like a rule book, for girls, when they're dating… pretty much do's and don'ts of dating in New York. And my friend Abby just gave me the names of two don'ts to add to the list…

"Wait, didn't your friend Barney call you Ted?"

"That's just a… just a coincidence" Barney answered… he laughed a little bit.

"Get out! Get the hell out!" Mandy yelled.

"For the love of God, this is my apartment, lady!"

"Oh, yeah…" Mandy said, she quieted down a bit, "Goodnight Marshall Erikson, or whatever the hell your name is!"

'**Mandy left, and we never saw her again, but years later your Aunt Lily came across the book, but that's another story.**

'**And, even though your Uncle Barney told me to go back to his place, I actually gathered up the gang and went back to the bar.'**

"So, he went through with it?" Robin asked. She knocked back a sip of her beer.

"Yup." I answered.

"And he used my name?" Marshall asked, he was obviously upset.

"That son of a bitch, he ruined my Marshmallow's name!" Lilly shouted.

"Yeah, you think you have something to worry about? When he abandons that girl, I'm going to have to be the one to explain to her why Barney doesn't live there."

"What is wrong with that guy? Usually he uses your name, what possessed him to use my name? My name isn't even that attractive!" Marshall shouted.

"Well, he said she liked Brett Favre" I said.

"Brett Favre… Brett Favre? Did they not see the 2010 football season…? I would have rather the Vikings not play than to play Favre!"

"Calm down baby… we can kill him when he comes down." Lily said.

"That makes it a little better." Marshall said.

"Well, I'll be happier when this is all over… it's unnatural for Barney to go out with a girl more than once, it's just not right." Robin said.

'**That was when Barney made his way down to the bar.'**

"Hey guys," Barney said, "if you can't tell, the date didn't go well."

"It serves you right, douchebag!" Marshall shouted.

"Well, I have some bad news for me, and some awful news for Ted."

"What, I let you use my apartment, and I still get screwed?" I asked.

"Well, Ashlee… err Cathy… err-"

"Mandy" Lily said.

"Mandy wrote a book, a cheap rip-off of the great Barnibus. She wrote a 'Gal Code'."

'**We all gasped.'**

"And it gets worse." Barney said. "Mid-date, she gets a call, and this girl she was on the phone with gave her the names of two guys never to sleep with, Barney Stinson and Ted Mosby."

"Seriously, how the hell did I get screwed?"

"Oh, my little Ted, it gets worse, the girl who called, was Abby… your Abby, you screwed up my date! You screwed up me getting to have sex with that girl!"

"Again" I said.

"Yes, again."

"Don't worry, Barney, you'll get back on the horse." Robin said, she seemed to have to force that.

"I don't know how big this book is, how many ditzy blondes have read this! My 83% success rate is heavily due to ditzy blondes!"

"It can't be that big, I'd never heard of it." Robin said.

"Yeah, me neither." Lily said. "It's small; it's probably just a group of like 3 friends nagging about past boyfriends."

"Plus, there's always a girl out there that would sleep with you no matter what the book says." Robin said with a small smile.

"Yeah, but the kind of girl that can't read can't catch a hint about going downstairs."

"C'mon Barney!" We all shouted.

"No, I mean they never want to leave in the morning." Barney said rolling his eyes. "I live upstairs they have to go downstairs… get your mind out of the gutter. Hey, I'll be right back, I'm gonna get a drink."

"It's on me," Robin said, she jumped up and followed Barney to the bar.

"Thanks, Robin." Barney said, they walked up to the bar together.

"You know," Robin said, "neither of us is in a committed relationship right now."

"Thanks for that, I wasn't feeling bad enough already." Barney smiled.

"No, I was saying we should get back together."

"No… we both know that's a bad idea." Barney said. "We don't want the same things… I mean, I left Nora for you, and then you got engaged, I've moved on." Barney was lying.

"No you haven't." Robin said. "The old Barney would've found a way to sleep with that girl, regardless of what that book said, but you took the first sign of a fight for an out, you want to get back together with me."

"I always did like planting my American flag on that Canadian landscape."

"Hey, you're an eighth Canadian."

"And you'll never let me forget it."

'**Robin shook her head, she leaned forward and pulled Barney in, and they kissed. After a few seconds your Uncle Barney pulled away, and then he leaned back in and continued to kiss her.'**

Barney pulled away again, "You are still gonna buy me that drink, right?"


End file.
